


Promises to Keep

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Comment Fic 2016 [129]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Green Arrow - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Stargate Atlantis, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 19:49:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8909731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the comment_fic prompt: "DC/MCU, Bruce Wayne/Tony Stark, Soulmate AU."Tony Stark meets his soulmate at the Excelsior School for Boys.





	

Here’s the thing: no one’s supposed to know what someone else’s soulmark looks like. It’s a private thing. Until one’s introduction to society or debut or cotillion or whatever, a soulmark is supposed to be secret.  
  
Which is why Tony hacks into the student records database as soon as the lights are out on his very first night. Excelsior School for Boys is the third fine boarding school for the rich and negligent that the Stark money has gotten Tony into. He’s hoping to get out of it as soon as possible. The key? Break big rules.  
  
But not pointlessly. There has to be a point.  
  
And Tony is curious about what soulmarks his schoolmates have. He knows his own is rare, has heard his mother fretting about it, how hard it’ll be to find a match.  
  
He checks out each of his roommates. John Sheppard is the scion of Sheppard Industries and has a soulmark that looks, well, not like any mark Tony’s ever seen. Kinda blurry and indistinct. Tony bets Sheppard uses that fancy henna some of the girls use to try to get love matches arranged for them. Sheppard has crazy, untameable hair, a tendency to slouch, and a quick mind for numbers that he hides behind sarcastic quips and flirty smiles. Sheppard is totally the kind of guy who’d mess with his soulmark just to be contrary.  
  
Tony likes him already.  
  
Oliver Queen’s mark looks like a cupid firing a bow, which is damn hilarious. Tony files that away for later, prepared for epic harassment when Valentine’s Day rolls around.  
  
Lex Luthor’s soulmark is on his bare scalp for all the world to see, some kind of weird s-shape in a diamond. He’s the only kid in school allowed to wear a hat indoors. Queen teases him mercilessly.   
  
Meredith Rodney McKay is a charity case but some kind of physics prodigy. His mark is circular, with weird braille patterns engraved in it. Maybe his soulmate is blind. McKay’s irritating as hell, snores like a broken buzzsaw, and is seemingly allergic to or phobic of just about everything, but if the IQ score in his file is accurate, Tony wants him for a friend.  
  
Oh, the things they’ll blow up.  
  
Tony clicks on the final file, and - oh.  
  
Bruce Wayne. Dead parents. Sent to boarding school by the family butler, who’s trusted enough to be executor of the estate. Smart enough. Quiet. Withdrawn. Has nightmares. Moody. Another sob story.  
  
Then Tony gets to the picture of Wayne’s mark, and his throat closes. Impossible. It’s identical to Tony’s, from the arcing branches to the curling, twining roots. Tony has only ever seen an image of that mark once before, the Norse World Tree, and it was in his mother’s journal, because she has the same mark.  
  
Tony erases all traces of his hacking and shuts down the computer, numb. He walks back to his dorm room, head spinning. McKay is snoring like a buzzsaw. Sheppard is crammed into the same bed as him, mouth open, drooling on his shoulder, one arm across his waist. They weren’t like that when Tony left.  
  
Queen and Luthor both have the heavy drapes around their beds drawn tightly.  
  
Wayne - Bruce - has his drapes open. He’s tossing and turning.  
  
A moan passes his lips. “Mama. No!”  
  
Tony reaches out, shakes him awake.  
  
Bruce clamps a hand around Tony’s wrist and twists before he comes fully conscious.  
  
Tony hisses in pain, and then Bruce is awake, blinking blearily. He sees what he’s doing and lets Tony go, stuttering apologies.  
  
“It’s fine,” Tony whispers. “You were having a bad dream. Thought you might want to be snapped out of it.”  
  
“Thanks,” Bruce whispers back.  
  
They stare at each other for a little too long, and the air between them thickens with tension. Tony crawls into his own bed and pulls the covers up to his chin and wonders what to do.  
  
The next morning, Luthor slinks out of the bathroom, eyes red-rimmed. Queen struts after him, smirking. Tony makes a mental note to locate some Valentine’s paper cupid cutouts to decorate their room with. Sheppard and McKay very carefully do not look at each other or touch each other as they perform their morning ablutions, get dressed.  
  
At lunch, Tony sits next to Bruce and asks him about one of the classes they have together.  
  
Bruce smiles at him shyly, and Tony makes a mental note to figure out how to get him to do that all the time, because his smile is beautiful.  
  
And then the principal discovers the hacking job, and Tony is shuffled off to yet another school (after a spectacular and embarrassing dressing-down by his father), and he promises himself that he will see Bruce Wayne again.  
  
When they meet, years later, chasing black-clad cat people through a dark city - Bruce chasing Selena, Tony chasing T’challa - Tony asks Bruce out on a date, and Bruce is so startled that he says yes, and if their first dinner out together is all over the tabloids, well, Tony is a man who keeps the promises he makes.

**Author's Note:**

> I got the Excelsior School for Boys and the notion of Oliver Queen picking on Lex Luthor from Smallville.


End file.
